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Single Ended Triodes (SETs), the ultimate tube lovers dream.

RE: Ultimately...

"...What a convenient model for an audiophile product salesman!

Problem is nobody else seems to be buying into it..."

I wish that were the case! Unfortunately, it seems that a significant percentage of people, although probably still a minority, do subscrbe to some of these ideas. It is as if there is an innate human need to look for mysteries where there are none, and seek complexity when there is simplicity.

A home stereo amplifier is really a very humble and simple system, and the technological demands are very modest compared with far more complex situations where science has overcome tough challenges. The frequencies are low, the currents are low, the voltages are low. And yet, there are claims that there are deep mysteries that transcend science, We are told that there are audible phenomena that cannot be measured with instruments, and that cannot be detected by means of objective listening tests.

As a physicist, I tend to favour simple explanations over complex and contrived ones. There is a beauty in simplicity. The phenomenon requiring explanation is that some people claim to hear effects that can neither be measured nor verified in double-blind tests. It is also well documented that the human brain is highly susceptible to expectation bias, and is easily fooled by a variety of sensory illusions.

The simple explanation that is consistent with all the facts would appear to be that the "unverifiable" sonic effects are in fact imagined by the listener who reports them. This would seem to be overwhelmingly more plausible than any contrived explanation about how the listener always loses the ability to detect the alleged effect if it is put to the test. The one obvious way to refute this would be if an alternative, objective, way of showing that the double-blind tests were unreliable could be devised. But as far as I am aware, no superior alternative has been proposed. In the absence of such an alternative, one is left feeling that the attack on double-blind testing is analogous to the attack a spoon-bender or a mind reader would make on any serious attempt to verify their abilities. And, furthermore, many of those who claim that double-blind testing is untrustworthy are the very people who have the most to lose if it is trusted.

Chris


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